The Dutch-Argentine pilot Julio Poch has also been acquitted of involvement in the so-called death flights in Argentina on appeal. His lawyers announced this on Tuesday during the talk show Jinek. The 69-year-old Transavia pilot was suspected of having been involved in flights in the late 1970s in which opponents of the then regime of dictator Jorge Videla were thrown out of planes. After eight years in custody, an Argentinian judge acquitted him at the end of 2017.
Lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops speaks with the final acquittal of “a complete rehabilitation” for Poch. “The man has lived here fourteen years of his life. This also means that the government has taken a huge crooked skate in the Netherlands.”
Poch was arrested in September 2009 with the help of the Dutch state in Valencia, Spain, and subsequently extradited to Argentina. After his acquittal in 2017, the Argentine judiciary, who suspected him of crimes committed during the rule of the junta between 1976 and 1983, appealed. Poch was able to return to the Netherlands in anticipation of this.
The defense had many questions about the investigation into Poch, in particular the role of the Dutch authorities. At the time, Knoops spoke of “a one-sided and non-transparent investigation”. In early 2021, an independent committee ruled that the Dutch government had acted lawfully in the investigation into Poch and his cooperation in his arrest in Spain. Poch finally reached a financial settlement with the Dutch government in 2021 for his unjust imprisonment in Argentina. The amount involved is not known. It was previously announced that Poch had refused an offer of 700,000 euros.
Read also: Minister Yesilgöz (Justice) refuses the Lower House research archive in the Julio Poch case